Pearl Harbor Day Topic. Thesis: what if the PAAF at Oahu had been equipped with Merlin P-40s and the

[miletus12]

Here is the plane.

Radar plot of the inbounds during the Pearl Harbor raid. 30 minutes warning.

Actual radar warning event described.

My opinion.

The time was sufficient to equip the PAAF with Kittyhawk IIs. The high altitude advantage and climb to altitude of Merlin P-40Fs would have been interesting in  that the sortie from alert 5 to altitude would have been better. More P-40s could have lifted off and gotten to bounce altitude than with an Allison. This is true even if the idiocies of the day remained the same. But the what if is this:

Suppose the air warning center put out the alert 5 flush out order and perhaps 100 P-40Fs were scrambled on 7 December 1941?      

[lordroel]

Dec 7, 2021 15:58:01 GMT miletus12 said:

Here is the plane.

Radar plot of the inbounds during the Pearl Harbor raid. 30 minutes warning.

Actual radar warning event described.

My opinion.

The time was sufficient to equip the PAAF with Kittyhawk IIs. The high altitude advantage and climb to altitude of Merlin P-40Fs would have been interesting in  that the sortie from alert 5 to altitude would have been better. More P-40s could have lifted off and gotten to bounce altitude than with an Allison. This is true even if the idiocies of the day remained the same. But the what if is this:

Suppose the air warning center put out the alert 5 flush out order and perhaps 100 P-40Fs were scrambled on 7 December 1941?      

Does this also change the lets park out planes as close together as possible to prevent sabotage on the ground as OTL.

Photo: Above, SB2U Vindicators were lined up at the outer edge of Ewa Marine Corps Air Station in 1942, parked wingtip to wingtip for security against sabotage. In the distance are the slopes of the Waianae mountains. Below, planes were lined up at Hickam Field in an undated photo



What the attackers would find, to their amazement, were unarmed and unprepared American planes parked wingtip to wingtip, making them ripe targets for bullets and bombs. The aircraft had been parked that way to facilitate security against sabotage.

Wheeler had 45 older P-36 fighters and 99 P-40s, as well as other aircraft. Hickam Field, headquarters of the Hawaiian Air Force, had about 60 airplanes on the ground, including A-20, B-18 and B-17 bombers. The aircraft were a key part of the defensive buildup of Hawaii as a bulwark against increasing Japanese aggression.

During the week preceding Dec. 7, Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, who had oversight of all Army personnel in Hawaii, including the Hawaiian Air Force, ordered a full-scale readiness exercise. Aircraft were armed and tucked into protective revetments.

But sabotage from the large Japanese population on Oahu — and not a surprise air attack launched from aircraft carriers — was Short’s chief preoccupation. The Army had primary responsibility for protecting Pearl Harbor.

Hawaii’s Japanese population then totaled about 170,000, with about 37,500 foreign born, according to “The Verdict of History,” by Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon.

Under a three-step “alert” system adopted by Short, Alert No. 1 was “a defense against sabotage, espionage and subversive activities without any threat from the outside,” the authors wrote. No. 2 included sabotage and defense against air, submarine and surface attack. A No. 3 alert was for all-out attack.

On Nov. 27, 1941, the U.S. War Department warned Short that “negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated” and that Japanese hostile action was “possible at any moment.” But where?

Based on sketchy information from the Navy, Short believed that Japanese navy ships were in home port or proceeding south, and he ordered Alert No. 1. It was still widely believed Japan would not attack Hawaii.

Short later told the Army Board, “I will say frankly that I did not want to go into Alert No. 2. … My judgment at the time was that while hostilities might take place, the hostilities, in our case, would be in all probability sabotage, or possibly (Japanese) uprisings.”

The Army believed the Navy knew the location of the Japanese fleet, and if it was coming near Hawaii, the Hawaiian Air Force would be duly informed so it could prepare.

On Dec. 7 Hickam had no anti-aircraft guns, and its few machine guns were sighted for ground, not air, defense. Wheeler had 125 earthen revetments, but fighter aircraft were grouped in the open without ammunition to make them easier to guard.

“The guard — everything — our whole idea there was, we thought it was going to be sabotage, and we expected the natives to uprise and come in,” Col. William Farthing, the Fifth Bomb Group commander, later testified.

Short drilled for war with Japan, including on May 12, 1941, with simulated bomber attacks on “enemy” carriers several hundred miles at sea.

Despite Short’s fixation on sabotage, not a single case of such anticipated Japanese interference occurred while he commanded the Hawaiian Department, according to Prange, Goldstein and Dillon.

Based on a Nov. 27 “war warning” from Washington D.C., Short ordered Army anti-aircraft guns throughout Pearl Harbor and at surrounding installations to deploy, but nothing came of the warning, so the guns were demobilized the day before the attack.

[miletus12]

Dec 7, 2021 16:02:16 GMT lordroel said:

Dec 7, 2021 15:58:01 GMT miletus12 said:

Here is the plane.

Radar plot of the inbounds during the Pearl Harbor raid. 30 minutes warning.

Actual radar warning event described.

My opinion.

The time was sufficient to equip the PAAF with Kittyhawk IIs. The high altitude advantage and climb to altitude of Merlin P-40Fs would have been interesting in  that the sortie from alert 5 to altitude would have been better. More P-40s could have lifted off and gotten to bounce altitude than with an Allison. This is true even if the idiocies of the day remained the same. But the what if is this:

Suppose the air warning center put out the alert 5 flush out order and perhaps 100 P-40Fs were scrambled on 7 December 1941?      

Does this also change the lets park out planes as close together as possible to prevent sabotage on the ground as OTL.

That depends on who replaces General Short in the situation.

If asked with the information passed to them, Kimmel and Short, in the war warning of 27 November 1941, I would agree with the initial professional findings that both men were "derelict of duty".

Text.

"This dispatch is to be considered a war warning x negotiations with Japan looking toward stabilization of conditions in the Pacific have ceased and an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days x The number and equipment of Japanese troops and the organization of naval task forces indicate an amphibious expedition against either the Philippines (printed in ink, "Thai") or Kra Peninsula or possibly Borneo x Execute an appropriate defensive deployment preparatory to carrying out the tasks assigned in WPL 46 x Inform district and Army authorities x A similar warning is being sent by War Department x Spenavo inform British x Continental districts Guam Samoa directed take appropriate measures against sabotage"

As is evident, the two men fixated on what they thought the message emphasized (Underlined). In the case of Kimmel, specifically, there is evidence that he was unaware or not concerned about the Pacific Fleet history of being caught by surprise by simulated Orange forces, twice; once in 1933 and again in 1938 in fleet problems that used American aircraft carriers to conduct simulated air raids on Pearl Harbor and the Panama Canal zone.

Short's excuse was that he was not informed of the AIRBATFOR concern about the anchorage's proven historical vulnerability. I do not agree with this excuse. Despite the division of defensive responsibility which split the fighter force apart from the navy recon element and the further excuse that Kimmel made that he lacked enough seaplanes to cover the threat axes with aerial patrols, it was incumbent upon those two commanders to conduct joint defensive air operations to secure the anchorage. I cannot emphasize how much of a role the incredibly incompetent Harold Stark and the equally derelict Richmond Kelly Turner played in both the obfuscatory wording of the war warning and the dearth of specific instruction to Kimmel to protect the fleet at all costs. Marshall's side of the equation is similarly at fault, but at least in a late follow up cable, Marshall instructed Short to take defensive measures as he, Short, deemed necessary. Short, being a racist, as well as a fool, went in for the sabotage angle and assumed the Nisei population of Hawaii were traitors.

Hence the photo you supplied below.

Photo: Above, SB2U Vindicators were lined up at the outer edge of Ewa Marine Corps Air Station in 1942, parked wingtip to wingtip for security against sabotage. In the distance are the slopes of the Waianae mountains. Below, planes were lined up at Hickam Field in an undated photo

What the attackers would find, to their amazement, were unarmed and unprepared American planes parked wingtip to wingtip, making them ripe targets for bullets and bombs. The aircraft had been parked that way to facilitate security against sabotage.

It was not just the Pacific Army Air Force that succumbed to this idiocy.

Wheeler had 45 older P-36 fighters and 99 P-40s, as well as other aircraft. Hickam Field, headquarters of the Hawaiian Air Force, had about 60 airplanes on the ground, including A-20, B-18 and B-17 bombers. The aircraft were a key part of the defensive buildup of Hawaii as a bulwark against increasing Japanese aggression.

My point, in emphasizing the radar setup and speculating about the P-40 force, was that in theory, even with the actual P-36 elements and the Allison P-40 Bs, if the scramble had happened, and the Apana radar alert had been heeded, the first Japanese wave should have been butchered at a predictably high cost to the defenders. This was the Japanese counter-air element which savaged the Americans air installations and neutralized the PAAF on the ground. Such an air battle would have been reported back to Nagumo, and given that admiral's notorious caution and opposition to the whole Pearl Harbor operation, it is likely he would have aborted the anti-ship second wave and retired to Japan with a mission fail.

During the week preceding Dec. 7, Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short, who had oversight of all Army personnel in Hawaii, including the Hawaiian Air Force, ordered a full-scale readiness exercise. Aircraft were armed and tucked into protective revetments.

So; he knew what to do.

But sabotage from the large Japanese population on Oahu — and not a surprise air attack launched from aircraft carriers — was Short’s chief preoccupation. The Army had primary responsibility for protecting Pearl Harbor.

My comment here is that the United States made a fundamental error in not consolidating a unitary air command for its armed services. The navy and army worked at cross purposes. Perhaps this can be traced back to the National Defense Act of 1920, but is significant that the Russians and the Japanese before and during the war had a more rational air organization and unity of command in their air arm than the Americans did and do down to the present day.

Hawaii’s Japanese population then totaled about 170,000, with about 37,500 foreign born, according to “The Verdict of History,” by Gordon W. Prange, Donald M. Goldstein and Katherine V. Dillon.

Who, if the two military leaders in Hawaii, if they had asked their local intelligence sections or the FBI in Hawaii, would have been told that the Nisei were fiercely patriotic... Americans. Racism; got to despise it, then and now.

Under a three-step “alert” system adopted by Short, Alert No. 1 was “a defense against sabotage, espionage and subversive activities without any threat from the outside,” the authors wrote. No. 2 included sabotage and defense against air, submarine and surface attack. A No. 3 alert was for all-out attack.

Someone familiar with the Japanese military, would have remembered Port Arthur.

On Nov. 27, 1941, the U.S. War Department warned Short that “negotiations with Japan appear to be terminated” and that Japanese hostile action was “possible at any moment.” But where?

See previous comment? The Japanese military always struck at the main concentration of enemy tactical strength if they could pre-emptively.

Based on sketchy information from the Navy, Short believed that Japanese navy ships were in home port or proceeding south, and he ordered Alert No. 1. It was still widely believed Japan would not attack Hawaii.

Kimmel knew that CAST had lost track of the First Mobile Fleet and he should have warned Short that no-one knew where Kido Butai was. No excuses are allowed with this information as part of the Congressional Record.

Short later told the Army Board, “I will say frankly that I did not want to go into Alert No. 2. … My judgment at the time was that while hostilities might take place, the hostilities, in our case, would be in all probability sabotage, or possibly (Japanese) uprisings.”

Based on what evidence? Short never could answer that question.

The Army believed the Navy knew the location of the Japanese fleet, and if it was coming near Hawaii, the Hawaiian Air Force would be duly informed so it could prepare.

See my previous comment about Kimmel's dereliction?

On Dec. 7 Hickam had no anti-aircraft guns, and its few machine guns were sighted for ground, not air, defense. Wheeler had 125 earthen revetments, but fighter aircraft were grouped in the open without ammunition to make them easier to guard.

Short had access to Honolulu police and the HAWAIIAN national guard for dispersal security. He had the radar sets, an air warning center and he had the plan, which he dress rehersaled for dispersal for the event of a war warning, so what actual excuse is there for his dereliction?

“The guard — everything — our whole idea there was, we thought it was going to be sabotage, and we expected the natives to uprise and come in,” Col. William Farthing, the Fifth Bomb Group commander, later testified.

Racism.

Short drilled for war with Japan, including on May 12, 1941, with simulated bomber attacks on “enemy” carriers several hundred miles at sea.

And?

Despite Short’s fixation on sabotage, not a single case of such anticipated Japanese interference occurred while he commanded the Hawaiian Department, according to Prange, Goldstein and Dillon.

As he would have known if he had any contact with the civilian communities, police, and his own G-2.

Based on a Nov. 27 “war warning” from Washington D.C., Short ordered Army anti-aircraft guns throughout Pearl Harbor and at surrounding installations to deploy, but nothing came of the warning, so the guns were demobilized the day before the attack.

He assumed the warning was short duration. He forgot

an aggressive move by Japan is expected within the next few days

Not immediately, but "within the next few days". It takes 10 days from the Kuriles to Yankee Option northwest of Oahu.